Deathworlder on Remnant
by AriDuFresne
Summary: Thanks to an alien abduction, a hillbilly finds himself on Remnant. He soon finds out that Earth is a Deathworld like no other. Will Salem's plans survive meeting Cletus Hatfield, or will the yokel with more strength than sense irreprably change the face of Remnant? More importantly, will she care? Crossover with the Jenkiensverse on r/hfy. Rated M to be safe.


I own nothing except Cletus and the plot.

O0o0O

Nestled deep in the mountains of the rear facing side of a tidally-locked, oversized natural satellite a meeting was taking place in a scientific research facility.

Seated around the rectangular table were the heads of each department in the Human Biological Research Facility along with their various interns, and at the far end sat a single being.

The small grey figure stood, his bulbous head and large black eyes meeting every matching pair in the room. Had a human been present, they would have been instantly identified as a Roswell Grey. Thankfully for them, this was not the case.

"My fellow Corti," The the grey's speech roughly translated, "Welcome to the single most dangerous system in the Local Galactic Group. I am Thorgop MCCCXXXVII, director of this facility."

"I will not assume the level of your knowledge of this system and its inhabitants, as there are some new faces in the room," Four corti at the end of the table nodded in recognition, "So I will take this from the top."

"We are currently situated on the rear-facing side of the moon locally referred to as " _Loonaah"_ in an effort to covertly study the single most dangerous species in the Local Galactic Group. Known commonly as _Humans_." The corti depressed a button on the display device in front of him, and a large holographic display of a human appeared before the group, much to their revulsion.

"This species came to the attention of the Corti Directorate a little under fifteen thousand standard galactic cycles ago. What makes them remarkable is that the planet they evolved on, " _Earth_ " is an upper level deathworld." This revelation sent shivers down the spines of the various corti's backs.

"But, Sir!" One of the young interns interrupted, "I thought sentient life couldn't evolve on deathworlds?"

The director nodded. "You would have been right a few thousand cycles ago. Even academically you are still correct, as the Directorate has worked hard to keep Earth's existence a secret from the galactic public."

"I am sure you are familiar with the planetary ranking scale? Classes one through nine are habitable planets, ten and up are deathworlds?" The collective corti nodded, "Earth is classified as a 12.9, and will likely be bumped up by at least another point by the time the humans become space faring." The room was silent, and nervous looks exchanged. A 12.9? A deathworld with that high a classification was almost unheard of. The only planet considered worse was designated " _Nightmare_ ", and it was only a 13 for Star's sake!

"As I am sure you can extrapolate, Earth is an extremely hostile planet. It posses an ever changing climate system that ranges from cold enough to freeze the blood in your veins, all the way to hot enough to melt petroleum based asphalt. Everything is covered in an uncountable number of microorganisms, one being capable of wiping any other planet clean of life. Earth also possess a gravity well of unusual size, enough so that they are barely within the threshold of escaping orbit with conventional propulsion methods."

The director looked to each of the interns with barley hidden glee. He so loved this part. "And as such, humans evolved to survive their environments. A human child no older than ten standard cycles is fully capable of ripping even the most physically imposing corti to ribbons with its bare hands." The interns turned a sickly grey color. Well, more sickly than usual.

The director continued, "As such, the Directorate has gone to considerable lengths to prevent the humans from escaping their own gravity well, to little success. The most success we have had is with various bioweapons introduced into the planet's biosphere."

The director motioned to the corti on his left, who stood and started speaking. "I am Doctor Cuven, and I am the head of the bioweapon department of this facility. Over the past two thousand galactic cycles, we have introduced a number of biological agents covertly onto the planet's surface in hopes of wiping the threat out. None have been successful." Whispers began in earnest before the doctor interrupted them.

"As I was saying. The human immune system does not follow any model in the known universe, leading us to believe that this species was a complete accident, and not some kind of seed on the planet as an experiment. Instead of the standard immune system, where the body isolates infected cells, and sends immune agents to eradicate any infection to the site, the human immune system simply destroys and expels infected portions of their bodies. Not only does this give them a massive advantage in terms of speed of healing, but also in defense of future infections. The human body will remember any disease that has previously infected it, and will destroy it almost instantly. They have used this to their advantage, and injected themselves with damaged and dead viruses and bacteria from as young as one fifth of a cycle of age to prevent infection." This shocked the corti. Purposely infecting your young, not even old enough to have hatched yet, with deadly diseases to keep them from getting them? It was madness!

The doctor continued. "Doing this has allowed them to defeat almost every bio agent ever introduced to the planet. Plague designed to destroy lymph nodes and spread via air? Killed a third of one landmass, but otherwise trivial to them. The Pox? Extinct to them. An agent to destroy a key component of their immune system? They almost have a cure. We even introduced " _The Bloating Death_ " on the planet, and they use toxins to destroy their cell replication material to destroy clusters! Successfully!"

"Isn't The Bloating Death incurable, Doctor?" One of the young corti asked the doctor fearfully. The Bloating Death was the single most virulent, contagious, and feared disease in the known universe. It had a one hundred percent mortality rate, and the kindest thing to do for someone diagnosed with it was to lock them in an incinerator, give them a pulse blast to the head, and fuel the incinerator with fluorine based oxidizers to prevent a planetary extinction event.

The doctor sighed. "We thought so. The humans named the disease " _Cancer_ " and have even been known to cure it with a simple change in " _diet_ " or taking the equivalent of a thousand lethal doses of ascorbic acid every day for a few years! They mere cycles away from curing the disease in the most psychotic and backwards way imaginable!" The doctor was seething at this point, having lost family to the disease, and knowing this backwater planet full of savages were creating a cure for an incurable disease infuriated her to no end.

The director placed a calming hand on her shoulder, and she sat down after a moment. "As you can see, the humans present an already massive threat to the intergalactic population as they are. What makes it even worse, is they are the single most violent race to have ever been discovered, and will fight anything for almost any reason, even themselves."

Realization of the sheer danger this race presented started to sink in. If they were to escape containment, it could mean the end of all life in the Local Group, if not the Supercluster as a whole!

The director nodded, seeing the faces of the interns, "I see that you now recognize the danger of this species. The founder of this facility did as well, and wrote this book as a response to the human threat." The director gestured to the tome in the hermetically sealed case on the wall. He then pulled out a brand new copy and placed it on the desk. "Our founder, Thorgop I, had an incredibly rare mental disorder for a corti. He was able to weaponize his mind, and turn anything into a weapon. This is a trait that every human is born with and develops from the age of three cycles on, but only one in every fifty million corti are born with. And yes, Mr. G'kte, that is exactly why you are in this facility." The director looked to the smallest intern in the middle, upon his flinch.

"Thorgop knew that a micro scale bio weapon would not work, and we would need a macro scale weapon, and so created the " _Remnant Initiative_ " over fifteen thousand cycles ago. The initiative involved taking two thousand humans from Earth, and placing them on a galactic standard planet. On that planet, designated " _Remnant_ ", we placed genetically modified predators from Earth, and connected them to a centralized hive mind. The predators would change and evolve with the various changes in their environments, and become more and more deadly with each cycle. They can also receive direct mutation from the hive mind's central hub, should it deem it necessary. This hive mind's central hub, the Queen if you will, acts as the target species. The queen was selected thirteen thousand years ago from the population on the planet, known locally as " _Salem_ ". For the most part, this initiative has been a complete success. There was one weakness to the plan however. Because the target species must also be the central hub for the creature's psyche, the queen must be misanthropic at all times."

"Humans are, by nature, a highly tactile race, and from the moment of conception to the moment of death, crave the touch of their own kind. We changed Salem's genetic code to force her skin to produce a toxin that is lethal to any human who touches her. We also hypnotically programed her to crave human contact with ten times the intensity that a normal human would." The director grinned sadistically. "Every time she touches someone, they die a violent, painful death. And she can't help but crave human contact. And has become a complete misanthrope because of it, and actively plans humanity's downfall because of it."

"For the past fifteen thousand cycles, Salem has been unknowingly reinforcing humanity's extinction. Within ten standard cycles, the creatures will have wiped the planet clean of human life, and become the last defense against humanity." The director stated solemnly, "At this point, it would take a complete moron to screw this up. There is no way we can fail!"

O0o0O

"Ooh, my fucking head..." Cletus murmured into the soft grass. His head was throbbing with the worst hangover he had ever experienced in his life. Even worse than the time he got smashed on twelve glasses of prom night punch.

Cletus lie there for what felt like hours, and only looked up when the throbbing in his head subsided. "Wait, where the fuck am I?" He murmured to himself, now noticing that he was no longer in the woods behind his house.

The trees were both deciduous, and full of leaves. Seeing that it was winter back home, this meant that he was either still very, _very_ drunk, or very, _very_ lost.

"Damnit! Did I drink uncle Billy's moonshine again. I'm sure he spikes that shit with something." Deciding that he would not be getting anywhere laying in the grass like a rednecks lawn ornament, Cletus sat up.

Almost immediately he could tell that something was off. When he sat up, his entire body shot off the ground, doing a slow 180 as he face planted into the dirt in front of him. Groaning, he sat up much more slowly this time, and eventually stood up. It seemed like gravity was much lighter than he expected.

Noticing a lump in his pants pocket, he pulled out two items. A steel flask, and a small Altoids tin. Inside the flask, was a jet black liquid that smelled strongly of soy sauce. In the tin was a huge fistful of tiny, psychedelically colored squares of paper, each with a little smiley face printed on one side.

Blackstrap rum and enough acid to supply Burning Man.

He was leaning more towards a third theory.

He shook off the shock of the suddenly lighter than expected gravity and/or drugs, and decided to roll with it. This was a much more interesting trip than normal, even if it did not feel like any trip that he had ever been on, but he just shrugged and went wit it. He took in his surroundings. He was in a forest, and it was from what he could tell early spring. Maybe he had just gone on a two month bender.

Sitting in front of him was a familiar pack. It was the ALICE pack he got for his twelfth birthday. Checking the contents, he decided it was kitted for a short camping trip, complete with all the survival gear a poor redneck could come scrounge from the local junkyard. Along with that was his .45lc lever action rifle, his Colt Single Action revolver, and a few boxes of ammo.

Deciding not to question why he was running around in the forest armed while high as a kite, he quickly strapped the revolver and bag on, and checking to make sure the rifle was loaded, and started walking.

Cletus had been walking for what felt like hours now, and had finally come across signs of civilization. Well, the ruins of one anyway. In front of him stood a collection of Greek style pillars. Some crumbled, some itact. Standing on top of a few of the intact ones stood a full set of oversized chess pieces.

He walked over to investigate. Each piece was abnormally large. One set seemed to be made of solid silver, while the other looked to be made of solid gold. Picking up the gold king, he was surprised with its weight, while not as heavy as gold or silver, they were still heavier than one would expect. He had just put down the piece when he heard it.

 _Ca-chunk!_

That sounded like some kind of solenoid system activating. It sounded pretty far away though, but it must be absolutely massive!

 _Ca-chunk!_

There it was again! Two seconds later!

 _Ca-chunk!_

 _Ca-chunk!_

 _Ca-chunk!_

The solenoids were activating every two seconds from some distance away to the south. Whatever was going on, there was likely human activity. And that meant rescue! Or a hospital! Cletus was not too picky at the moment.

He had walked about ten feet away from the ruins when he stopped. The gravity seemed lighter than he remembered, but the pieces still felt heavy. Then it hit him. Solid gold and silver chess pieces in low gravity.

Cletus smiled at his good fortune.

O0o0O

A tall, silver haired man looked over the large scroll in curiosity. The man on the video feed just finished stuffing all twenty solid gold and silver relics into his old military style backpack. How he managed that without the bag ripping was behind him. Maybe it was dust infused fabric? Shrugging, Ozpin continued watching the man, who was now walking away with hundreds of kilos of precious metals like he was barley encumbered. That would require the strength of somebody with an unlocked aura to manage, and he knew the faces of all of the current and past students of Beacon, and this man was not one of them.

This year would prove interesting indeed.


End file.
